There is a light in the drawing-room; and the window is a few inches open, for the night is muggy. You advance slowly, noiselessly to a screening shrub, set down the sandalwood box, and peer through the leafless branches into the cosy drawing-room. Ah! what have you seen in the drawing-room?... Why that deep groan? Why do you tear the white locks from your brow?... What have you seen?... After all, does it matter what you have seen, _since you are dead_? Did you not wish to see your wife happy? Well, you see her happy! She and M. Lecamus are sitting on the sofa. They are holding one another's hand; they are gazing at one another with the eyes of lovers. He kisses her, with respect but with devotion. He is consoling her for the loss of you. You wished it. How can he better console her than by replacing you? Theophrastus, the gentle, kind-hearted manufacturer of rubber stamps, perceives this. He drops on his knees on the cold, wet grass, weeping tears of bitter resignation. He is reconciling himself to the necessity of the cruel fact that they are sitting in his comfortable drawing-room, and he is kneeling on his cold, wet grass. He is almost reconciled to it; but not quite. What is that that is thrusting, thrusting forth? _The upward thrust of the Past_--_the Black Feather_! The tears are drying in the eyes of Theophrastus. His eyes are gleaming through the dim winter night with an evil gleam. He springs to his feet; he grinds his teeth; he cries hoarsely: "_By the throttle of Madame Phalaris!_" The Past has him in its grip; he is racked by the pangs of the old-time jealousy, and the pangs of the new. In three seconds he is through the window and in the drawing-room. Wild screams of terror greet his entrance; but in ten seconds more M. Lecamus lies senseless in the big easy-chair, bound hand and foot with the bell-rope. When he recovers his senses, the hand of the clock has moved on ten minutes. Torn by fears and suspense, he listens with all his ears. He hears faint movements on the floor above. The minutes pass; twenty minutes pass. Then there is a sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. Theophrastus enters, once more a changed Theophrastus: his eyes no longer gleam with an evil light; they are full of unshed tears. His face is working with intense emotion; and on his shoulder is a portmanteau. _What does that portmanteau contain?_ Theophrastus, his face working with intense emotion, crosses the room to his old friend. He wrings his hand, wrings it for the last time; and in a broken voice, a voice full of tears, he says: "Good-bye, Adolphe! Good-bye, dear friend, for ever! I am going to the _Seine near the Town Hall Bridge. I have to leave this portmanteau._ And then I go into eternal exile!" He loosed his grip of his friend's hand and, his face still working with intense emotion, he went through the window, bearing the portmanteau with astonishing ease.